Penny smiled. "I just wanted to tell you that I won't be here for supper. I'm going over to Becky's place."
Gimlet frowned. "If I'd o' knowed that I'd o' taken a lot less trouble in fixin' good eatin' steaks."
The girl exchanged a few more words with the cook, then left by the rear door. At the corral, which lay between her home and Rebecca's, she saw Yuma working on Las Vegas.
Yuma was the only new employee in the Basin that Penny could look at without an instinctive feeling of revulsion. Yuma was working a brush vigorously over the hide of the mustang when Penny approached. She had heard a few rumors about the big, pleasant-faced cowpuncher, with shoulders so big and broad that they seemed to droop of their own weight.
It had been said by expert judges of good fighters that a blow from Yuma's fist would drop a bull. He had once been locked in the back room of a saloon with four men in what was to be a fight to the finish—Yuma's finish, supposedly. A short time later his fists crashed through the panels of a locked door and a mighty demon of a man walked out. His clothing was in shreds. Inside the room, debris and wreckage were everywhere, and four men were prostrate on the floor.
"You needn't rub the hide off him," said Penny as she came near. Yuma looked up and grew red in the face. Before the pretty girl, the giant was flushed and bashful.
"Shore, ma'am, I'm right sorry. I—I had a little time on my hands an' seen yore hoss. Bein' as you warn't around, I figgered tuh clean the hoss up some."
"And if I'd been around," replied the girl in a teasing voice, "I suppose you'd have cleaned me up."
Yuma stared, mouth open. "Y-y-yew, g-g-gosh, Miss Penelope, I—er—uh...." He paused, completely at a loss.
Penny really enjoyed watching the young giant squirm in his embarrassment. She rested her elbows on a rail of the corral, and hooked the heel of one boot on a lower rail. Leaning back, she watched him for a moment, then said, "What's your name?"